← The Megyn Kelly Show
The Megyn Kelly Show
What's Behind Massie's Big Loss, and Trump's Paxton Pick, with RCP, and Patrick McEnroe on International Players Invading College Tennis | Ep. 1321
01:42:58
Megyn Kelly begins the show by discussing why Thomas Massie lost in Kentucky, President Trump's impact on the race, the role pro-Israel money played in the results, and more. Then Tom Bevan, Carl Cannon, and Andrew Walworth of RealClearPolitics, join to discuss how Israel, Iran, and Trump all had a role in Massie’s loss, Massie's Epstein focus and what GOP voters care most about, Trump's endorsement of Ken Paxton in Texas over John Cornyn, what the polls are showing on Paxton and Cornyn in comparison to Democrat James Talarico, Talarico’s bizarre interview with Jamie Kern Lima about his "girlfriend," whether Talarico might win, and more. Then Patrick McEnroe, ESPN analyst and host of “Holding Court” on SiriusXM, joins to discuss why he's going public about there being too many international players in college tennis, the way it harms Americans and their chances at success, how he plans to propose solutions to this problem, how NIL has ruined college sports, the way paying college a...
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- [00:00]
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Megyn Kelly
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on Sirius XM channel 111 every weekday at noon East. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. I've been chit chatting with some people here in the red studio and I, I'm putting my earrings on right now and I just took my hair out of curlers like two seconds ago. It's been that kind of morning and I'm thrilled to be with all of you. Happy Wednesday everybody. Patrick McEnroe will be here later in the show. He was in the red studio, is here in the red studio and is gonna be coming down momentarily. And there was another guy visiting whose identity shall remain nameless until we actually unveil him on the show at a later date. But there's a lot going on and we're thinking of all of you. Patrick's actually gonna be here to explain why we may need to bring the America first movement to college tennis. There's some weird shit happening at the college sports level that not many people are talking about, but he's one of them, so we'll get to that. First though, major developments in the political world today. Seven term Republican Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie has lost. It happened. He went down. He was defeated in the Republican primary by his Trump backed challenger ed Galrine, a 68 year old dairy farmer and retired Navy Seal. Now anyone who is even a casual observer of politics knows that Massie has been a thorn in Trump's side throughout his second term. He co sponsored the Epstein Files Transparency Act. He voted against the one big beautiful bill that was Trump's signature legislation to fund his entire agenda. He's been very critical of the Iran war and the Trump administration's close ties with Israel. All these things, you know, standalone, could have had Trump turn on him. But, you know, together, it's kind of no mystery why Trump was not his fan and found an opponent to run against him. Trump and his political allies, as well as pro Israel groups made ousting Massie a major priority with over $32 million spent. So obscene. It's so obscene, the numbers we're spending on these. These races for a Kentucky House district. Number four, to be exact, Kentucky House District four. It now holds the record for the most expensive primary in US history. In US history, with pro Israel group spending well, at least 9 million alone against Massie and a super PAC funded by pro Israel billionaires like Paul Singer and Miriam Adelson shelling out another nearly half. 7 million. So it's almost $20 million of the $31 million spent on behalf of Israel. I mean, this is crazy. What are we doing? What? Like, what are we doing? Why are we allowing that? Even if you're pro Israel, I mean, like. And of course, I've been pro Israel virtually my entire adult life. I don't want that determining American elections. Why is that determining American? We got. We got our. We got problems here. We got bridges falling down. We've got roads that we can't drive on. We got kids who can't get into college or buy homes or get jobs when they get out of college. We got grown adults who work very hard, two jobs, double shifts, can't take a vacation. Like, can we not worry about Israel in the election of our congressman? Like, maybe we worry about it, but it's like, you know, number seven on the list, as opposed to number one, the thing that dominated the vast majority of the spending. It's crazy talk that spending, I mean, truly seems to have paid off because Gallerain not only beat Massie, who has won seven terms out there and, like, by a lot, but he beat him by nearly 10 points. So it wasn't particularly competitive. Congressman Massie making a reference to this issue in his concession speech. Watch.
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Patrick McEnroe
I would. I would have come out sooner, but I had to call my opponent and concede, and it took a while to find Ed Gowrine and television. I did get the call through, though. I have called and conceded the race. We've been honorable the whole time, and we're going to stay that way. You know, welcome to the most expensive congressional primary ever in the 250 year history of this country. It's not just the most expensive. This thing went on longer than Vietnam. It started nine months ago, and they didn't even have a candidate, and they decided they want to take me out.
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Megyn Kelly
He's not wrong. That's true. Massie's defeat is another victory for President Trump, who, despite his declining national favorability rating, has only strengthened his grip on the Republican Party. I mean, it's actually a very interesting case study because the president's poll numbers are way down. But when it comes to electing lawmakers, Republican lawmakers, the Republican electorate is very clearly saying, we want people who will support his agenda. So they may not be thrilled with how he's doing on certain line items in the agenda, but they still back the president. And that. That also is shown in sort of the overall number of Republicans who are still behind President Trump, which remains, you know, 85, 82% of the party. So you're seeing that there's. There was a very interesting exchange with Thomas Massie at one of his late rallies. I think it might have been the day before the vote, where one of the gentlemen who attended stood up and really gave him a hard time about the fact that he's not backing the president and he wants somebody who's going to back the president's agenda. And I think Massie was kind of like, what if the agenda isn't even what President Trump promised? Right. Like on Iran or arguably, Epstein and this gentleman seemed to want deference to the president, you know, even if it didn't. Like, he was basically trying to convince Massie that the president knows more than Massie knows. And that literally is true when it comes to something like Iran. Given his position as the commander in chief and the classified briefings he gets, though, it doesn't mean you can't oppose the Iran war just because you don't have all the same info. But I do think that's that was the frustration, because as I mentioned, it was thing after thing after thing. So it's like, I think Kentucky voters may have given Massie a pass on one thing or two things, because all along he's been not big on spending us into debt and he's had, like, a couple of core issues and he's been reelected so many times. I think it was when he just continuously started challenging the president and started to look more like part of the opposition that Kentucky voters said no. And then you can't dismiss some 20 million of the 31 million spent coming from Israel and pressuring people with these ads, manipulating people with, you know, bought and paid for ads by Israel proponents that there's no question that played a role. Absolutely no question. Once again, Miriam Adelson got her way. The president's preferred candidates also won in Indiana, in some state Senate primary races, and in the Louisiana GOP Senate primary. And legislators in the Hoosier State opposed his redistricting plan that favors Republicans. Also, Senator Bill Cassidy voted to impeach Trump back in 2021. And the president yesterday endorsed a big candidate in Texas. This was a big deal. So we've been watching this Texas Senate race, and John Cornyn is up for reelection, and he's sort of a more traditional Republican, right? I mean, you could argue milk toast is another word. With all due respect to the senator, he's a very nice man, but, you know, like, our pal Jesse Kelly was getting progressively angry about this one because he does not want Cornyn, and he's seen as a swamp creature by a lot of people on the right. Whereas Ken Paxton, while he's got some. He's been in some, you know, weird ethical legal troubles, which he's resolved most of. He seems more like a product of the base. And, you know, Jesse and many other, like, real red meat Republicans want Ken Paxton, and they're mad at Senator Cornyn because he would not support the SAVE Act. Well, he'd support the SAVE act, but he wasn't saying, let's get rid of the filibuster so we can make sure we pass it, which requires voter id. And I do believe that's probably one of the reasons why Trump just swooped in and endorsed Ken Paxton. He, Trump, signaled that he did it because he thought that Paxton was more loyal to him than Senator Cornyn has been. Cornyn pointed out he's voted with the President 99% of the time. But Trump pointing out that he felt Cornyn was a little slow to endorse him in the 2024 primaries. You remember, he was prime. Trump was facing, you know, Desantis and Nikki Haley and others, and he didn't think Cornyn got on his team early enough. And he also thought maybe he didn't say enough or do enough in the actual presidential contest once he became the nominee. Trump. This morning, President Trump also showing no signs of retreating from his pro Israel policies. Watch this.
- [10:16]
Patrick McEnroe
If you said to Prime Minister Netanyahu about Iran and how long to hold off on strike, that's fine. He'll do whatever I want. Him to do. Don't forget he was a wartime prime minister and he's not treated right in Israel. In my opinion, I'm right now at 99% in Israel. I could run for prime minister. So maybe after I do this, I'll go to Israel, run for prime minister. At a poll this morning, I'm 99%. So that's good.
- [10:43]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, that's wonderful. But he's at 38% in America, which is his country. So that's something we need to fix. I'm so thrilled that the Israelis are super happy. There was another trend that caught our eye last night. Young voters all flocked to Republican Thomas Massie. I mean, all of them, if you were under the age, if you were 55 or under, you voted for Thomas Massie. And Gallrain's support was from individuals eligible for Social Security. It was the 65 and up crowd, which is very interesting. Nothing against the 65 and uppers. It's just there's clearly a divide within the Republican Party from the older and the younger. And unfortunately for Thomas Massie, the older vote. I mean, as we all know, the seniors, they vote. That's why you're never allowed to touch Medicare. You can never say you're touching Medicare because seniors vote way more than the young people. So look, I mean, this is the big data poll from Friday. It essentially showed a tide race, but Massey was up 81.5 to 18.5among voters 18 to 29 years old, meaning 81% of them were voting Massey. Less than 20% wanted Guerain. These are Republicans with the 18 to 29 year old crowd, while Gallrain led 61% to Massie's 39% for voters 65 and older. This is within the Republican Party, so the older Republicans are extremely pro Trump and remain pro Israel. Like those same divides covered the Republican Party on the issue of Israel as well, and the Iran war for that matter. It's very interesting how it's breaking out. That data also tracks with what we saw from the crowds for each candidate last night. Here's Massey's watch. It's packed room, standing room, and a lot of enthusiasm for con for a congressman who they know well. Obviously not everybody in that crowd was young, but a healthy portion of them were. Now we're going to check in here with Galran. Let's watch. All right. He's like mingling. Kind of looks like the church bazaar, you know, like fair amount. I'd say like dozens showed up. Yeah, I don't know. Most of Them do appear older. And during his speech, there was an effort to get a USA chant going at the end. It didn't go so well. Thank y' all for coming tonight. Thank y'.
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Mathnasium Advertiser
All.
- [13:28]
Megyn Kelly
Thank y'.
- [13:29]
Patrick McEnroe
All.
- [13:30]
Megyn Kelly
I know he seems kind of sweet. It's like a farmer, a former Navy seal. I'm sure he's a good man. There's been a lot of speculation about whether that's true and what his real background is, because he had, I think, eight possibilities to debate and wouldn't we know very little about him. So some people are speculating like he was handpicked by the president. He was plopped in there. President Trump had said, just give me a warm body. He hates Massie. Give me a warm body. He got a warm body. And you know he. In Kentucky, Donald Trump had no problem getting that warm body elected. So we don't know that much about Gallerain. We do know he's going to vote with the president in lockstep. I mean, he's pretty much said that. And that's what Trump wanted. And that's clearly what the voters of Kentucky wanted and they're entitled to it if that's what the majority there wanted in the Republican Party. Good for you. You do have to show up. Good for the old people. They showed up and they voted what they wanted. The young people didn't. So you get nothing. So you get nothing. There's also video of one of Gallerain's election parties. This was taken after the election was called by the media. I mean, it's not, it's not a group of young voters. We saw maybe one man who looked under the age of 30. Yeah. So it's like young people, if that's what you want, you should have shown up. Like, who's got time for your complaints if you didn't show up? Joining me now to break it all down, what it means for today and for the midterms, our pals from RealClear Politics. Tom Bevin is the co founder and president of RCP. Carl Cannon is the Washington Bureau Chief at RealClear. And Andrew Walworth is Real Clear's chief content officer. Are you feeling sluggish? Bloated? Not quite like yourself. Life constantly bombards us with silent threats. Processed foods, artificial light, non stop stress, all of which can disrupt gut health, drain energy and weaken immune health. When that happens, it's not that your body is broken, it's that it might be missing the right inputs. This is why I want you to know about Amra Colostrum. It is packed with more than 400 bioactive nutrients that they say can work at a foundational level to fortify gut health, support immune health, fuel recovery and promote whole body vitality. Strong gut integrity can support metabolism, skin and hair health, even performance and recovery. Which is why Colostrum has long been valued by some elite athletes as well. If you are looking to take back control of your health from the inside out, consider armra and they have a special deal for you too. Go to ara.commegan or enter megan M E G Y N to get 30% off your first subscription order. You do that when you're checking out. That's a R M R a dot com M E G Y N or just enter that code Megan when you're checking out. So guys, it is a very big deal that Massey lost and it does say a lot about our politics. I kind of gave the back of the envelope on my take. Carl, I'll start with you on this. What's your take on what it means?
- [16:33]
Tom Bevin
Well you, you got it right about
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Carl Cannon
Kentucky Republicans want someone who will follow do what the President says. He's, he's the head of the Republican Party. He's the head of the rnc. We have that phrase in journalism. Titular head of the Republican Party. That's not enough for Trump. He's, he's the boss. And Massey bucked him on everything that was important to him in terms, in terms of Israel. Megan it's important to remember not one nickel of that money came from Israel. It came from American Americans who were Jew many of Jewish apac who, who support Israel. But this wasn't, this wasn't just about.
- [17:07]
Megyn Kelly
But it just wasn't just about. About Israel.
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Carl Cannon
It wasn't just about this war.
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Megyn Kelly
Those donations were largely about Israel.
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Carl Cannon
Thomas Massie would was the only vote 420 to 1 on a non binding resolution condemning attacks anti Semitic attacks on people. When two people young, beautiful young couple was killed in Washington D.C. there were other attacks around the country on, on Jews, not Israelis American Jews. And Massie wouldn't. He's the only one. Elian Omar voted. I mean didn't vote with Tom Massey AOC didn't vote with Tom Massey. None of the other libertarians voted. He this thing where he's this ant this Tel Aviv crack.
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Megyn Kelly
What does APAC stand for again Carl?
- [17:52]
Carl Cannon
Well, I'm talking about anti Semitism and I have to tell you you, you
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Megyn Kelly
think I get it but to pretend this is all about that vote and I condemned that shooting. It was horrific and I Condemn all anti Semitism. What I'm saying is very openly on this show for years. But what does AIPAC stand for?
- [18:09]
Carl Cannon
American Israeli. Something. Committee?
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Tom Bevin
Action committee.
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Carl Cannon
Yeah.
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Megyn Kelly
Political action committee. Yeah. Well, it's not American interest. It's not American Jewish people. It's about America and Israel. That's what they're pushing.
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Carl Cannon
So you're saying you think America.
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Megyn Kelly
You don't take my words for it.
- [18:27]
Carl Cannon
What are you, what are you saying here?
- [18:29]
Megyn Kelly
No, of course I support American Jews and I defended American Jews and I put my record of defending American Jews up against yours any day, Carl. Any day of the week. I'm saying we'll always protect American Jews. However, this AIPAC has admitted it. Here is their tweet. Ed Gallrain's victory in Kentucky and Clay Fuller's win in Georgia ensures two outspoken pro Israel voices are positioned to fill seats previously held by outspoken detractors. Thomas Massie and mtg. Our community was proud to help pro Israel candidates win these races. That's from a pact. I rest my case.
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Carl Cannon
Fine. But what I'm saying is that Massie was different than all these other people who questioned the war. He. This guy wouldn't. I said on our show he wouldn't even vote for a resolution. You know, Congressional Medal for Jack Nicholas. He's just a very contrary person who I thought until recently was a principal person. But this, this, that, that crack in Tel Aviv, to me, that's anti Semitism voting against an anti. Voting against a resolution that every.
- [19:32]
Megyn Kelly
How is that anti Semitism? On him being obsessed with Israel, which, I mean, you can make the case that Gallerain's not, but that's what the knock is about.
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Carl Cannon
But I'm not talking about Israel right now. I'm talking about an anti Semitic resolution. He's the only person in the House who voted against him.
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Megyn Kelly
You're flip flopping now. Let's go back to his. You saying the knock, the comment about Tel Aviv is anti Semitism? Me?
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Patrick McEnroe
How?
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Carl Cannon
Oh, he's just, he's, you know, that's what, that's what he's saying. This guy's a tool of Israel. He's not, you know, he's a Navy
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Tom Bevin
seal, by the way.
- [20:02]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, and Megan, on our show, your argument's falling apart. I'm bringing somebody else in.
- [20:08]
Carl Cannon
I'll say it again. When I saw Massey say that, it made me long for the days when we had duels in this country. 200 years ago, we had duels. I would like to see a duel between a Navy SEAL and this Guy who never, you know, who likes to talk crap about people, but never even played sports, let alone fought.
- [20:26]
Megyn Kelly
I think you and I are going to a duel today. Tom and Andrew are going to be our second.
- [20:32]
Patrick McEnroe
Pistols or knives?
- [20:35]
Megyn Kelly
Remember that?
- [20:36]
Carl Cannon
In Butch Gassing? Send that skin? Neither.
- [20:38]
Patrick McEnroe
Well, let's get the rules straight. Noodles rules in a knife fight, and he kicks him in the nuts. So I'm going to stand down now, Megan.
- [20:46]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. No, I like that. It's fine. We kicked it off with some spice. Tom, I'll get your thoughts on it.
- [20:52]
Tom Bevin
Well, listen, after that, I don't know
- [20:55]
Megyn Kelly
so much to choose from.
- [20:57]
Tom Bevin
Look, I think obviously this was a fraught race for Thomas Massie. And, you know, J.D. vance explained it well the other day about how, you know. And he was friends with Massie and worked with Massie on some stuff. And Massey went from being sort of. And you pointed this out in your intro, Meghan, that he went from sort of being this iconoclastic guy to being sort of almost with the opposition. And he made a lot of enemies, including the President of United. United States. And when you do that, you can expect that. That the party's not going to be there for you and that the, the party will challenge you. Yes, there was a lot of money spent in this race. And I think it is important to point out there is a schism within the Republican Party. There's no question about it. And the, the, the age difference of the voters is something that I think Republicans need to pay attention to and, and not just ignore. However, you know, I would also say, you know, money's important to a certain degree, but especially in a smaller race, you know, when you get, when you get beyond a certain amount, there's diminishing returns. Right. If they spend 5 million, okay, that helps you with, you know, get volunteers and get on air and all that stuff. But the difference between 5 million and. And 20 million or 20 million and 25 million, you're not getting a lot more out of that. Right. Obviously, the airwaves were blanketed with ads. Everybody knew it. An extra, you know, couple million in ads is not gonna. Is not gonna put you over the top necessarily. And he won this race pretty handily. So it's, as you mentioned, it's pretty clear the voters in Kentucky wanted someone who was gonna be with the president and with the president's agenda on a whole host of issues, including, it seems, the, the war in Iran, even though he is, as you point out, that's not necessarily a popular position writ large among the public and you look at our Rookler politics, job approval rating, he's under 40 for the first time in his second term, he's approaching his all time low and his disapproval rating is at an all time high in his second term. So again, I, you know, I don't know. I did think, I. By the way, I'll just get beyond the record here, Megan. I did think the Tel Aviv thing was like a low blow. I mean, he didn't need to do that. He could have been a classy guy and he could have, he could have conceded graciously. And I thought that was kind of bullshit on his part.
- [23:14]
Megyn Kelly
I don't dispute.
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Patrick McEnroe
Low blow. Okay.
- [23:19]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I don't think I like that's, yeah, it wasn't like a classy thing to do. No, it's like anti semitic. I mean this is not BLM 2020. We're not doing that here.
- [23:27]
Tom Bevin
Well, I'm just saying let's keep going. And, and look, it tells you a lot about a person, how they handle moments of defeat and crisis and adversity.
- [23:36]
Patrick McEnroe
Right.
- [23:36]
Tom Bevin
And to me that wasn't, that was, that was him kind of showing that,
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Megyn Kelly
you know, I mean, we're talking like Donald Trump is the person on the other side of this fight, really. And he didn't handle his loss particularly well back in 2020, you staged one
- [23:54]
Patrick McEnroe
lousy riot at the Capitol.
- [23:56]
Tom Bevin
Well, he also didn't lose by 10 points, Megan. I mean, Massey got his ass kicked. I mean really.
- [24:02]
Megyn Kelly
He did. He got his ass, no question. I mean it was, it wasn't close. There was a huge surge in turnout, by the way, if what I'm seeing online is true, they had some 20,000 more voters, Andrew, I think than they had the last time around. Some people, you know, it being the Republican party, are crying foul about that. Right, like that. Those numbers don't add up. That's too suspicious. Why are those numbers so off? In 2020, they had 84,000 votes come out for the race between Massey and his challenger. Then Massey crushed it there, 68, 000 to 16. In 2020 they had 66000 votes. 2024, 52000 votes. And yesterday they had a hundred and four 000 votes. Galleraine winning by 57000 in the last count and Massey 47 000. So I, you know, I'm not sure why we had so many more votes here in a non presidential election year, but this race had $32 million spent on it. So I'm gonna put my money on
- [24:59]
Andrew Walworth
that, that would be my. That's the Occam's razor, right? I mean, that's. You spend that kind of money and you make it this important, you have the president out there talking about it. That drives people to the polls. I mean, it wasn't close. It was 54 to 45%.
- [25:13]
Patrick McEnroe
So
- [25:15]
Andrew Walworth
if, you know, if you've been right on the edge or something, you might, you might say that the money made a difference or something. But I think that, you know, occasionally the voters speak, and I think they spoke loudly in this case. The other thing about it is that, you know, why Trump cared so much about this race. It wasn't just Israel. I mean, he voted, this guy voted against the big beautiful bill. And Trump is looking at, you know, if you want to give him some credit for foresight. And Epstein, thank you. Yeah, the other. But he's looking at what's going to happen this fall, and they may be in the minority or they may have this tiny, even a smaller majority. And he's seen how hard it is to get anything done on the Hill with the minority. Have there now. So every vote's going to count. So to me, this isn't just about revenge. A lot of the press are calling it, you know, part of the revenge tour. This was really trying to secure a vote that he can count on in the fall. And if you look at it that way, you know, spending 20, $30 million, whatever the final number was on, on the Republican side, might, might, might have been a good investment. I don't know.
- [26:22]
Megyn Kelly
Well, I think it also has another benefit to Trump, which is, you know, I don't, I don't have to hurt everyone. I just have to hurt a couple of very prominent examples, and then the rest will fall in line. You know, he wants the rest of the Republican Party to fall in line. And if he can make an example out of Thomas Massie or even John Cornyn, I'm not sure it's not the same situation. But he has said corn is not getting my endorsement and Ken Paxton is, because I didn't think Cordon was sufficiently pro Trump in the 2024 election cycle. So if he can just sort of say to people, you know what? I do have a long memory and I do keep track. And if you, if you buck me on the big beautiful bill, you rub my face in Epstein, which I clearly made clear I wanted to go away. And you, you made it into a thing where I then had to kind of sign this law to make it look like I also wanted Transparency. But I had made clear prior, but I didn't. I'm going to hurt you. Like I have every right to swoop into your primary as the biggest person in Republican politics and hurt you. And Massie knew the Trump could do that. He assumed the risk for sure that Trump would do that. And the only real question I have is, would Massie have gone down if it had just been that alone and not all this pro Israel money? And I wish we could know that. I really do. I wish we could know that, you know, did, did Trump have the juice and the power to make him lose just because he did get so much more active about trying to bring him down this time? Because he's done it.
- [27:56]
Tom Bevin
We talked about Indiana, but I think
- [27:57]
Andrew Walworth
a nine point spread is part of the answer to your question, Megan. I think, I don't think could have
- [28:03]
Megyn Kelly
done it on his own.
- [28:04]
Andrew Walworth
I think, I think it would have happened either way.
- [28:06]
Carl Cannon
Yeah, we could ask Senator Cassidy.
- [28:08]
Megyn Kelly
That's unfortunate to Israel that they spent all that money. Well, Cassidy, Cassidy was annoying. I'm glad Cassidy was gone, honestly, like, he was so annoying. I sat in that RFKJ confirmation hearing and he thought he was already HHS secretary. What Cassidy did, like, he was so disrespectful and he was like, he is not Maha at all. Our viewers called his office and said, you better vote for him. And it got so bad that, that they disconnected the phone lines, then called us and begged us to stop having our audience call. But like, we have a lot of Maha moms and dads watching this program who are much more on Team Kennedy than they are on Team Cassidy. So farewell. I'm not going to miss him. Now. What about Cornyn Paxton?
- [28:55]
Andrew Walworth
That's interesting.
- [28:56]
Megyn Kelly
That's also really interesting. Right? Like, who wants to take the first crack at that take on that?
- [29:04]
Tom Bevin
Well, I, we talked about it on our show and I look, the poll show that Paxton was leading, you know, and I think the writing was on the wall that Paxton was going to win this regardless. I, you know, I just for the
- [29:15]
Megyn Kelly
audience there, they, they had our, they had our vote and neither one got a majority. So they were going to go to a runoff in like a couple of weeks. Paxton versus Cornyn. And that's what he thought Paxton was going to win.
- [29:26]
Tom Bevin
You remember, right, when they went to the runoff, Trump basically said, kind of said, offered this deal to Cornyn that if you, if you push the SAVE act and vote for the act, Save America act, that I will turn around and endorse you. If you Bring that to the floor and get that, you know, push that over the finish line. And that didn't really happen, but, you know, and Trump sort of held off and then now, now here he is with just a couple weeks left and you look at the polls, I mean, a couple of them have it tight, but a couple of them, I mean, the majority have, have packs in the head. And so I think Trump was, you know, hopping on a bandwagon a little bit. He hates to be involved in losers. Right. And the MAGA base clearly is behind Paxton. And so I don't even know if he had endorsed Cornyn, whether that would have moved the needle for him enough to, you know, get him over the finish line. So I think, I think Trump decided that he was just going to go with, the guy's going to be a winner. And by the way, if you look at the general election, I know people say, and Carl said this and thinks this, which is, which is perfectly fine, that John Cornyn would be a better general election candidate. The polling that we have shows that we have thus far shows that basically Paxton and Cornyn run essentially the same against Talarico. I mean, they're within like a point of each other. They're both at 44, 45. Talarico is at 44, 45. He's obviously got a whole host of issues. James Talarico does to be. Trump just said the other day, like, he's a vegan. He can't wait. Vegans can't win in Texas, which, which is probably true, actually.
- [30:53]
Megyn Kelly
Vegan. So Trump is so unfamiliar with like veganism. He's such a red meat American guy. He was like, he's a big, he's a fake. That's not even what, that's not even a thing.
- [31:04]
Tom Bevin
But I think he is right about that. And so, you know, Paxton obviously has some, some baggage as well. And that'll get aired during a general election campaign. But, but he's not that much worse.
- [31:13]
Megyn Kelly
Texans aren't going to.
- [31:14]
Tom Bevin
Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you're looking at independence, like, okay, I got Ken Paxton and then I got, you know, I got James Talarico. That's, that's the choice I'm facing.
- [31:21]
Megyn Kelly
Who thinks God is non binary?
- [31:22]
Tom Bevin
Exactly. I think a lot of Republicans or a lot of independents even are going to, are going to, you know, decide that it's going to be an uphill battle for, for Talarico.
- [31:30]
Megyn Kelly
I think Carl, here is, here's Trump on Talarico from Friday on Air Force 1 Sat.12.
- [31:37]
Tom Bevin
Where are you on the Texas Senate race.
- [31:39]
Patrick McEnroe
Well, I'll maybe make a decision. I know both very well. I like them both a lot. And, you know, my record of endorsements is extraordinary. I think the Democrats have a weird. A weird candidate, six genders, a real On Jesus. He's a vegan. All of a sudden, he's not a vegan. He was a vegan all. Now all of a sudden, he's not. Texas doesn't like vegans. I. I do believe either one of
- [32:08]
Carl Cannon
them will easily win the R. You're right.
- [32:11]
Patrick McEnroe
He said vegan.
- [32:14]
Carl Cannon
It makes it. It sounds like, you know, it's a cross between vegan and pagan. He's a vegan. It sounded even worse.
- [32:20]
Patrick McEnroe
It's like a.
- [32:21]
Megyn Kelly
A weird religion that doesn't McDonald's burgers so much. He's like, what even is that? I don't even know what it is. But here's the other thing. So James Talarico went on the most annoying podcast in America, and that's saying something. It's hosted by that weird lady who invented it, Cosmetics. I'm sure you're all familiar with it. Her name is Jamie Kern Lima, and she. Not for nothing, but she was a news anchor who was not happy with how her skin was looking on camera. And so that was. That's what led her to create this brand of cosmetics that gave more coverage. It's a huge hit. She wound up selling it for a billion dollars. And now she lives out with the Duchess of Duplicity in Montecito. And that's how people may know that she has a podcast, because she conducted the most annoying interview ever of Meghan Markle on that show. I mean, if I had known I was gonna go here, I probably would have pulled up one of those clips.
- [33:23]
Patrick McEnroe
It's.
- [33:23]
Megyn Kelly
It's. Your skin crawls. It's a. Meghan Markle has never been so likable because she's across from this bizarre, strange person. And now, probably not coincidentally, James Talarico, who's also weird and unlikable, goes across from her as well. Truly, it's actually kind of a brilliant strategy. Just find the least likable interviewer you can and launch your campaign on their show or, you know, do some sort of big, long sit down with them. Here is. That's. This is. I'm actually going to try to get on Michelle Obama's podcast. Now that I think about it, it's gonna be really good for me. Okay, here he is on Jamie Kern Lima's show. This guy Talarico, who Paxton or Cornyn will have to take on the most popular question that we got asked is, are you single? Are you single? So you have a girlfriend?
- [34:18]
Patrick McEnroe
I do.
- [34:19]
Megyn Kelly
Of many years, I do.
- [34:21]
Patrick McEnroe
And she is. She is my rock. She is my best friend.
- [34:27]
Megyn Kelly
I. I don't know if I could
- [34:29]
Patrick McEnroe
have gotten through the last six months of this crazy race if. If she hadn't been by my side. So, yeah, thanks for asking about. About her as well.
- [34:40]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, at the moment, she's in Canada, but she is real.
- [34:45]
Tom Bevin
She's my rock.
- [34:46]
Megyn Kelly
Maybe we're in love.
- [34:47]
Tom Bevin
Maybe it actually is a rock that he just calls his girlfriend.
- [34:50]
Carl Cannon
Megan. Did you ever long for Jasmine Crockett?
- [34:55]
Patrick McEnroe
No.
- [34:56]
Megyn Kelly
Exactly. Oh, my gosh. I like that guy. I have news for his girlfriend. Girlfriend don't go through with it. If you're real, run. It's not going to end well. I think your friend James has got something he'd like to discuss with God, like, behind closed doors when nobody's looking. But the question is, can he win? Because when we first got to look at this guy, we all said, there's no way this guy's winning in Texas. But Texas is getting more liberal, sadly, thanks to all of the, you know, new arrivals there. And they didn't. They did elect somebody like a Jasmine Crockett. And the more moderate wing of the Republican Party is worried now about Ken Paxton's chances. And I. I know they were loyal to Cornyn and they like Cornyn, but I think Murkowski, Collins, Thune are genuinely concerned that. That Paxton could lose. Should they be?
- [35:56]
Carl Cannon
I think so.
- [35:58]
Andrew Walworth
Yeah. I think they should. I mean, I think it's.
- [36:01]
Megyn Kelly
It's.
- [36:01]
Andrew Walworth
It's a. I think that. I know Tom talked about the polls, but I. I don't quite believe the polls. I think that he is a worse candidate for the state at this point and this fall. You know, it's a. It's possible that tall Rico could. Could pull it off. I just think that it's. You know, you can't. You can't totally dismiss that possibility the way.
- [36:24]
Tom Bevin
Well, anything possible, Andy?
- [36:26]
Andrew Walworth
Right.
- [36:26]
Tom Bevin
Well, like, is it likely?
- [36:28]
Andrew Walworth
No, I would not say it's likely, but if you were sitting in the Senate, and, I mean, the President of the United States of your party is endorsing challengers to your fellow senators. Yeah, that's upsetting. That's upsetting because, you know, there but for the grace of God go. I. I mean, I think the other interesting thing about this is that, you know, you are sort of ending up with a number of senators for the next six, seven months who are unleashed from any and probably a little pissed off, you know, to put it lightly at the president.
- [37:04]
Megyn Kelly
And that's so true.
- [37:06]
Andrew Walworth
You know, how's that going to look? I mean, there's you. So you've got Cassidy, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, you've mentioned Thom Tillis of North Carolina is already going. Is, you know, is out now. You had Cassidy and Cornyn. So when you're talking about things like the ballroom or the War Powers act, if you're the white president, you know, you're losing, you know, a lot of votes in a closely, in a close Senate.
- [37:33]
Megyn Kelly
Gretchen Carlson, my old colleague from Fox News, was on X today urging Massie, who's been like at the center of the Epstein disclosures, like insisting on the Epstein disclosures and getting a fair amount, not all, but a fair amount of them, urging him to go on the floor and just read all the names out loud.
- [37:49]
Andrew Walworth
Yeah, you know, he did say, he said, one of the things he said is I've got seven months left. I mean, it's not like he's gone tomorrow. He's here for seven months.
- [37:58]
Tom Bevin
But can I go anything, can I go back to James Tallarigo for just one second? I mean, he's a please at 45%. And so, yes, could he get the extra 5%?
- [38:07]
Patrick McEnroe
Sure.
- [38:07]
Tom Bevin
But I mean, we're talking about this. The, the, the general election has not even started yet. And when it starts, right, he's going to have to stand on stage one on one against Ken Paxton and answer Ken Paxton's questions or the questions of the moderators. There will be millions and millions of dollars spent. He's obviously, Talarico shattered fundraising records. He's flush with cash. He's going to be able to expose PAX and as you know, and all of his warts. But Republicans are going to have plenty of money, too, and they're going to, you know, expose some of these positions to a broader audience that James Talarico has on, as you said, Megan, on, on God, on all these other, you know, transgender issues, on guns, on all of this stuff, immigration. And, and so once that happens, I think this race is gonna, is gonna take on a different flavor and it's gonna look a little bit, I still think it's an uphill battle for him in a state where there are still more. It has, it has obviously moved to the left, but still a lot more Republicans than Democrats in Texas and even some of the Democrats that are in Texas outside of like Austin and some of the main, they're not like far left Democrats unless they're living in the cities.
- [39:15]
Andrew Walworth
But Tom, won't this largely be about turnout and the Democrats, what we've seen so far is they are turning out their voters and they may turn out in Texas. And if you've got someone like Ken Paxton, our independent, is going to turn out and vote for him. I mean, sure, he'll, he'll still carry the MAGA base, but is that going to be enough in Texas this next time around?
- [39:33]
Tom Bevin
I think it is. I mean, that's the thing. I think, I think the MAGA folks would have looked.
- [39:37]
Megyn Kelly
Can I say one thing about, about Ken Paxton, Tom? He's, he's spicy. He's fun to listen to. Like, if he actually gets on a debate stage with Talarico, we're all going to want to watch that because he's used to fighting. He's started many fights. He's been the recipient of many rhetorical and litigation punches. Like, he'll be prepared to spice things up and keep it, keep it rough. He's not gonna let anybody bully him. Whereas Cornyn, you know, kind of like quiet. He, as I said in the beginning, and I don't mean that to be mean, but like a little bit more milk toast, I think you could say, which is why he's got like the Susan Collins's and Murkowskis of the world. Like, oh no, not corn.
- [40:17]
Carl Cannon
And keep going top gentlemen instead of milquetoast. Megan.
- [40:21]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, there we go. I don't know. I call my husband a gentleman, but he's not milk toast.
- [40:25]
Tom Bevin
He's also, but, but in a, in a midterm election, and you're right, turnout matters and, and MAGA voters are going to turn out for Ken Paxton. I, I don't know that they would have turned out for John Cornyn.
- [40:35]
Megyn Kelly
They might have been like Jesse Kelly would not have.
- [40:38]
Tom Bevin
Exactly.
- [40:39]
Carl Cannon
But here's the other thing, though. Tom Trump is not as popular as he was in Texas previously. You know, eight years ago when Beto o' Rourke was running against Ted Cruz. Trump was, I saw a poll this morning on cnn. He was, you know, plus four popularity statewide. Now he's, you know, minus three. So, you know, the being the mega, the mega handle may not be as potent as it was in Texas, even in, you know, relatively recent elections.
- [41:08]
Megyn Kelly
Okay. My friend has just emailed me to remind me that it's pronounced it cosmetics, not it. So it's it, it's it. Just back to Jamie Lee and Kernow, because it's that kind of day. Let's just look. We, My crack team has found one of the cliffs between this. This lady and Meghan Markle. Watch this. Just look at this. Are you in love now more than ever? More than you've ever been? Yeah. I mean, you have to imagine at the beginning, everyone has, like, butterflies and. And then we immediately went into the trenches together. Yeah. Right out of the gate, like, six months into dating. So now, seven years later, when you have a little bit of breathing space, you can just enjoy each other in a new way. And that's why I feel like it's more of a honeymoon period for us now. Do you think you'll be married forever? Yes. I have a letter. He's also a fox, if you haven't noticed. My husband's very, very handsome, but he's. His heart is even more beautiful. I love that your eyes are sparkling right now. Oh, I threw up in my mouth.
- [42:17]
Carl Cannon
Megan, I went to journalism school, and I have to tell you, those are the questions we were taught to ask people. Are you going to be married forever?
- [42:27]
Tom Bevin
This is what I love about being on Megan's show, though. We're talking politics, and then suddenly we're commenting on, like, Meghan Markle and some random podcaster that we've never heard of. At least I've never heard of.
- [42:37]
Megyn Kelly
It's a strategy. Two villains, Talarico and Meghan Markle, choosing the least likable person they can find to interview them. There's a reason. And that high voice. I can't even do it. My, My. My voice is naturally low. My mother's is even lower. I can't even get up to that. We're the little actors. Like, your eyes are sparkly. It's so embarrassing. That's where Talarico went. And there is a reason for that. I want to ask about the following. In the news, everywhere right now is this lush fund, that's what they're calling it, that Trump got with the doj. And I find this situation very interesting. So Trump sued the government for a man who worked in the IRS leaking Trump's tax returns, which he did. That guy just got convicted of that and sentenced. And Trump sued, and it went in front of a court who said, wait a minute. You're suing an agency that is part of the executive branch, and you are ultimately in charge of. So you're kind of suing yourself. So I'm not sure I actually can hear this case because Article 3 of the Constitution, which empowers our federal courts, requires Me to only hear a case if there's an actual case or controversy which requires that the parties be adverse. Have to be adverse. How can they be adverse if they're really the same person? It's you suing you. You're in charge of the lawsuit and of its resolution. And she said, I'm going to issue a ruling on this in a day. Well, this is Monday. She's going to issue the ruling on Wednesday and on Tuesday. Todd Blanche, who is Trump's former personal attorney, right. Who's been spent the past decade trying to represent Trump's personal interests, who's now running the doj, temporarily decided to settle the case with Trump before the mean judge could throw it out of court, saying there's no case or controversy here and therefore I have no jurisdiction. And they settled it for a mere $1.8 billion that the government is now going to pay out. Technically it's a, it's, it's. What is it? 1776, is that what you mean?
- [44:46]
Patrick McEnroe
1.776, yeah.
- [44:47]
Megyn Kelly
Was it an homage to the founding? So Trump says, you're not, you don't have to pay me directly. Although it is still a possibility that, that the Trumps could file for redress in this fund because they have been the victims of lawfare. But what he said is, I want you to use the money for remuneration of people who have been the victims of lawfare. And we're going to appoint a five person board that Todd Blanche is going to appoint. But I get to oversee. I, the president can fire them if I don't like them or what they do and they're gonna approve the disbursements. You have to submit a claim, you have to make your case as to why you deserve something. I'm thinking about somebody like a Steve Bannon, you know, who was put in jail for contempt of Congress, whereas Merrick Garland was found in contempt of Congress and didn't serve one day cuz he was the ag he decided not to prosecute himself, but he was happy to prosecute Steve Bannon. He should file. I heard a liberal station say, is James Comey going to file? Letitia James, could they, you know, like they could make the case. They've been the victims of lawfare. But now the left and some on the right are really mad that $1.8 billion of taxpayer money, it's already a slush fund, whatever you want to call it at the doj, which is meant to cover government payouts that we actually do have to pay when the Government loses in any given lawsuit. But basically we just agreed to give it all to this new fund under Todd Blanche, who clearly wants to win the favor of the President because he wants to be the real Attorney General, not just acting. So there is some self dealing going on here. But the thing that jumped out at me, guys, is I don't like it. I'm not going to lie, I don't love it. I'd like to see individual plaintiffs who feel they've been harmed by lawfare, and there are a lot of them, file a case and get the remuneration they ought to, just like those loosers, those losers Lisa Page and Peter Strzok did. They sued and got paid out of the same similar slush fund saying our private texts were released. Nobody cried a tear in the leftist media for them. So this is a bigger payout is going to involve more people. But this was created by Barack Obama, Tom. Barack Obama is the one who started the practice of having his DOJ go after these big corporate interests and then extracting a settlement that they then had to pay to Barack Obama's favorite environmental group or Hispanic voter group or insert your favorite cause. Like so much of the stuff that Trump does that's controversial that we may or may not love, it started with Barack Obama. And the same media that's now ripping Trump to shreds for doing it said nothing, nothing when Barack Obama started it and was the one to cross the norm and create the new normal where our government officials do this to us. So I really have no tolerance for their cries and protestations about what Trump is doing, that unlike those other bullshit things, Obama did actually do, have the chance of helping someone who's actually been hurt. Your thoughts?
- [47:55]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah.
- [47:56]
Tom Bevin
Look, we end up, this is the problem. We end up in this sort of tit for tat cycle, right, where, you know, somebody will do something and break some norm or set some new precedent and then, and then the next administration will go and look, we saw it with pardons, the Biden. Wait till Trump gets the pardon when he's leaving office. Like, imagine who he's partying. And one of the components of this deal, Megan, which, which is also outrageous, is that the, the IRS has agreed to never audit any of the Trump family members or any of their businesses ever, for all of eternity, which seems patently unconstitutional or illegal or something, at
- [48:39]
Megyn Kelly
least I'm not sure that one's gonna hold up exactly.
- [48:41]
Carl Cannon
For one.
- [48:41]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah, so.
- [48:43]
Tom Bevin
So, yeah, I don't like it either. And, and so you can, you can hold these Two thoughts in your head at the same time. One, yeah, it's, it, it seems kind of like a sketchy deal and I wish the president wouldn't do it necessarily. I agree with you. I mean, as far as people who have actually been harmed and had, you know, had their livelihoods taken away, or as businesses, including Real Clear Politics, by the way, who, who was actively discriminated against during COVID for all of this misinformation and censorship stuff that went on, we, you know, would love to have
- [49:16]
Megyn Kelly
a, or Trump himself.
- [49:18]
Tom Bevin
Exactly. But like bring your case and get a settlement individually through, through the proper channels and means and a jury. Have a jury award you and recognize that you were, you were harmed in that way. But again, so don't like it. But at the same time, to point out, it's perfectly reasonable to point out, hey, this isn't like some, something new under the sun that Obama started this. And you're right, I mean, the media, we see this time and time and time again, Right. Trump will do something and the media will go absolutely batshit crazy over it. And they'd be like, oh, well, Obama did this or the Democrats did it and they didn't care. And we're not talking like 50 years ago, we're talking like six months ago or a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago. So there is this double standard that constantly plays out and it is infuriating.
- [50:03]
Megyn Kelly
Kim Strassel had a great piece in the Journal on this, pointing out that, for example, Volkswagen was required during the Obama administration to invest $2 billion in zero emissions technology. $2 billion. The Obama administration paid $380 million via the Agriculture Department to settle a class action suit brought by Native Americans. Oh, gee. There's a list of government approved nonprofits that the Justice Department maintains, and these are the beneficiaries that are pushed by places like the Obama administration and the Biden administration, and they're almost all liberal activist groups like the National Council of La Raza, the National Urban League. I could keep going. All that was fine. That was all fine, Carl. Only this gets scrutiny by the media.
- [50:51]
Carl Cannon
I agree with every word you said, Megan. Might surprise you. Every word. The only thing I would add, though is that the, the cognitive dissonance to me isn't that the Democrats are being, or the media is being hypocritical. It's that Trump himself is using lawfare to go after James Comey and other people and he's pretty open about it. And if they're going to stand on principle and say lawfare is wrong and the American and the people who are harmed by it should be recompensed by the government then they should stop doing it now.
- [51:22]
Megyn Kelly
Okay, I'm not gonna lie. I'm kind of enjoying what's happening James Comey. But I take your point. I take your point. All right, we've decided instead of a duel at dawn, we're just going to send you to Jamie Kern Lima show. Now you have to go over there and then get back to us on how it goes and see if your eyes sparkle while you're there. Guys, thank you.
- [51:46]
Carl Cannon
Anytime, pal.
- [51:47]
Patrick McEnroe
Good to be with you.
- [51:48]
Megyn Kelly
Great to see you all. All right, coming up, a first time guest on the show, Patrick McEnroe. Yes, the tennis great. The face of American tennis is here and he's got a thing or two to say about what we're doing to college athletes. When there are supply constraints on commodities, prices surge. You see it with fuel prices, with everything happening in the strait of Hormuz. And you know what else is a limited commodity? Gold. They mine it out of the ground and when it's gone, it's gone. Governments cannot just print more of it. And that's why everyone from central banks to savvy savers consider diversifying with gold. If you've been thinking about it for years but have still never moved some of your savings into physical gold, consider Birch Gold group. Now through May 29, Birch Gold is giving first time gold buyers a rebate of up to $10,000 on qualifying purchases. For details and a free information kit on diversifying into Gold. Text MK to the number 989898. Bridge Gold can help you convert an existing IRA or 401K into a tax sheltered IRA in physical gold. Text MK to the number 989898 to see if you qualify for a first time gold buyer rebate of up to $10,000.
- [53:01]
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- [54:05]
Megyn Kelly
Now we turn to the world of tennis and sports. Patrick McEnroe is a former professional tennis player and current sports broadcaster. He's really truly one of the best known faces of US Tennis. And he's here today to discuss a major issue he sees in college tennis today. And it affects more than just tennis. More foreign players and less Americans are taking all the spots. So what's behind this and what are we going to do about it? If anything, Patrick got kind of tired of just sitting around complaining about it, wrote an op ed in the Wall Street Journal and is actually pressing for real change in the college athletics level. He's the host of Holding Court with his brother John McEnroe. But his show is called Holding Court with Patrick McEnroe on SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio. Patrick, welcome to the show.
- [54:50]
Patrick McEnroe
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
- [54:51]
Megyn Kelly
So the Sirius XM show, it's just you, but you hold a different one.
- [54:54]
Patrick McEnroe
I'm doing a show with my brother called the Mac Zone coming up from Paris during Roland Garros at a French Open.
- [54:59]
Megyn Kelly
Okay.
- [55:00]
Patrick McEnroe
So we're going to be doing that with our friends at Turner Sport. So we're looking forward. We did, we started last year and just kind of way to, to do something a little bit different in the tennis world.
- [55:08]
Megyn Kelly
Now, are you the junior brother or the senior brother?
- [55:11]
Patrick McEnroe
I'm the junior, actually. I have two brothers. John's the oldest. I have another brother Mark in the middle.
- [55:15]
Megyn Kelly
Okay.
- [55:15]
Patrick McEnroe
And then I was a young, I'm still the youngest, although I'll be 60 in a couple months. So we grew up in Queens and we just so happened to get lucky, Megan, that our parents moved, you know, when my dad became a partner at his law firm when he was quite young, they moved to sort of the nicer part of Douglaston, which is called the Douglas Manor. And this particular area had a little tennis club called the Douglaston Club. And John was eight and a half at the time and was playing all the other sports, basketball, soccer, football was very good at all sports. And he decided to try tennis because they only had tennis and swimming in the summer. So the kid who was like a college kid who was running the program. After about a month in the summer, he saw my parents at the club, you know, at the snack bar. And he said, you know, Mr. And Mrs. McEnroy, your son's like, crazy hand eye coordination for tennis. And they're like, oh, great. Because my parents had never played tennis, knew nothing about it, and he said, no, no, you need to do something. You need to take him somewhere, because he's got incredible talent. So they took him to a place called the Port Washington Tennis Academy, which is now actually part of our John McEnroe tennis academies that we run all around New York. And anyway, there's a great coach there named Harry Hopman who was a legendary coach from all the Australian greats. And he had gotten a fight with his federation. He came to America, ended up in Port Washington. He sees my brother. He goes for a tryout to get a scholarship. He says, we'll take him. He said, he's going to be number one in the world.
- [56:44]
Megyn Kelly
No way.
- [56:44]
Patrick McEnroe
Now, apparently, Meghan, he said that to all the parents of their kids. This one time, he happened to be right.
- [56:50]
Megyn Kelly
Wow.
- [56:50]
Patrick McEnroe
So I just did whatever my brothers did. I was. I was, you know, I was one year old at the time.
- [56:54]
Megyn Kelly
Yes.
- [56:54]
Patrick McEnroe
And I just followed in my. Whatever my two brothers did. So we played soccer and basketball. And it's a club that had a wall, and I would just go down there before I could even ride a bicycle. I would go down on my tricycle, and I would hit against the wall for just hours and hours.
- [57:08]
Megyn Kelly
Yep. And is that what made the difference? That sort of.
- [57:11]
Patrick McEnroe
I think it was like, you know, we obviously. I obviously started playing a lot at a young age, so that tends to be the. The route that professional.
- [57:21]
Megyn Kelly
How you.
- [57:22]
Patrick McEnroe
Well, usually less than five, really. And as I said, John was a freak in that he didn't start to lose eight and a half. And. But because he was such a freak of nature, the way he, you know, his coordination, he was able to, you know, become number one. And what most players that you see playing on TV at Wimbledon, in the US Open, they've probably started playing tennis around five or six years old. And they do other things. You know, we encourage our academy kids to do other things, to do other sports, not specialize so young. But it is becoming more and more difficult because the level's getting better and better, you know, as kids, you know, in all sports, you know, travel soccer teams and travel lacrosse, and so they. They feel pressured to do more at a younger age. There's the economic side of it, which we're all guilty of, you know, whether it's our tennis academy or the people running travel soccer teams, you know, so that pressure is there, and then as kids just play more, you know, the average kid gets better, and so the hope, the bar gets raised for everyone. So what I'm seeing and what I've seen in college, tennis, and you rightly mentioned it's starting to happen in a lot of other sports as well. But tennis is like the canary in the coal mine on this story because the numbers for Division 1 college tennis of international players is well over 60% of Division 1 players. And the numbers have gone up exponentially in the last, like, 20 years. So to me, it's not, it's not a. I love having international players in all sports, and I think there's just, there just needs to be a balance because what I've seen in the last 10, 15 years is just continue to go down this path and, and then now working at our tennis academy where I run into parents and the parents are, you know, their kids aren't going to be professionals.
- [59:05]
Megyn Kelly
Megan Right.
- [59:06]
Patrick McEnroe
But their goal for many of these kids is, is can I play in college? Am I good enough to play in college? And now I get, I'm getting a lot of pushback on all my accounts, you know, oh, Patrick, you know, you, you're a loudmouth and you're just trying to get attention for yourself. And, you know, American players just need to get better. They need to be better. Our kids need to get better. And I'm like, isn't that professional sports? Is that, is that supposed to be what college sports is about? I personally don't think it is.
- [59:33]
Megyn Kelly
You have to be at the top of your game just to get in,
- [59:35]
Patrick McEnroe
just, just to get in and get us and get a place to play, a place to participate. Now, of course, it shouldn't. It's not about participation. I mean, these kids that are training the international kids oftentimes have already played professionally for a couple of years in Europe.
- [59:48]
Megyn Kelly
That's the difference. A lot of those European kids go right out into the pro leagues and try to make it pro and then,
- [59:53]
Patrick McEnroe
and they're really good, but they can't quite make it to the top echelon.
- [59:57]
Megyn Kelly
So now you have somebody who's played a little bit of pro and is 25 or 24 years old as a candidate against a 17 high school. That to me, that's American.
- [60:06]
Patrick McEnroe
That to me, there's just something that doesn't just not right, that that's continuing to happen. So the eligibility rules have to be tightened. You know, I don't believe that you should be playing any sport in college, whether it's Carson Beck, who was a quarterback at the University of Miami. You know, he transferred From Georgia, he's 25, 26 years old. And in tennis, you're seeing more that happen quite often in college. 10. You know, if they can't get these things under control, then I think you have to start talking about the possibility of, should there be some type of quota system of international cap on how many, or at least a cap for American players to get spots on teams. And maybe there's a way to incentivize a university to say, hey, if you have X number of Americans, we'll give you some. You know, part of your nil money can go to that sport. And maybe it's different for each sport because. But as I said, tennis is the sport now that has by far the most international players in the lineups of. I mean, I'm watching. This is what prompted me to get involved, because I was sitting at home about a month ago and I'm waiting for the Nick game, the playoff game to come on on a Sunday, and I see on my screen, college tennis. So it was on espn, SEC Network. So I turn it on and it's between Texas and Mississippi State.
- [61:21]
Megyn Kelly
It's. It's the finals, or it's the finals.
- [61:23]
Patrick McEnroe
The finals of the SEC tournament, men's tournament. I hear the guys commentating, the other ESPN guys, I know him. I text him, hey, you guys sound great. I said, by the way, just for my own interest, how many Americans are on the court? There are 12 players on the court, six from each team. One. Okay, so my mind starts clicking. I just put a tweet out with no commentary, just the facts. I'm here, I'm watching the sec final. There's 12 players on the court. There's one American. And that created, like this groundswell. And then I found out I was wrong. There was actually two, because someone, of course, corrected me right away, said, no, Pat, you're an idiot. You don't know what you're talking about. There's two. There's two Americans because the one guy had a very Spanish sounding name. And then I looked him up and it turned out he was from Florida. So. And then I. Anyway, then I went to the ACC championship match, which is also two heavyweights in tennis, University of Virginia and Wake Forest. By the way, University of Virginia just won the title, but they were playing in the ACC final, one American. So you got, you got 20. So you got 24 players in four big time tennis schools on these two big conferences, and you've got a total of three Americans. And then I, I started, you know, a lot of people started reaching out to me, positive and negative. And then I found, well, in the Big east tournament, which was between, I think it was St. John's and DePaul, not tennis powerhouses. Megan.
- [62:47]
Andrew Walworth
Okay.
- [62:47]
Patrick McEnroe
None of their players have any thought about being professional tennis players.
- [62:51]
Megyn Kelly
No offense, gentlemen.
- [62:52]
Patrick McEnroe
No offense. Exactly. Exactly. And same numbers.
- [62:57]
Megyn Kelly
Wow.
- [62:57]
Patrick McEnroe
Same number even. Correct. And so this is what I'm hearing, I've been hearing from parents. You know, one parent said to me, who's, who's. The son is actually got a Division 1 scholarship at A, at a lower level tennis school. And she said to me, she said, patrick, my son would never have put himself through, you know, all the training, all the tournaments, of course, the expenses for the family. It's an expensive sport, big time. And if he didn't think that he could possibly play Division 1, he said, and he said, she said, trust me when I tell you this. It's, it's very similar from all the kids because they all know that the chances of them being pro or, you know, is 1%.
- [63:38]
Megyn Kelly
Right? If that.
- [63:40]
Patrick McEnroe
But, but that's, that's the carrot that's there. And so I'm worried now that, you know, the elite players find their way through the program because a lot of people say, well, we have, we, we. The United States has the most American male players in the top hundred in the rankings. And same for the female players.
- [63:57]
Megyn Kelly
Wait, what do you mean in, in
- [63:58]
Patrick McEnroe
the, in the world. In the professional ranks.
- [64:00]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, okay, okay, okay.
- [64:01]
Patrick McEnroe
So quite a few of them now came through the collegiate ranks. Ben Shelton, who's the highest ranked American player. Emma Navarro, who was in the top 10. Peyton Stearns played at the University of Texas. So I got a list of players that played in college. So for them, in a way, the foreign competition has possibly helped them because they're the elite player, but they're the less than 1%. I'm worried about the 99%, and I'm worried about the pipeline of players that will come through the system of tournament tennis and have that goal. And I think that goal is, I don't think. I know it's getting much harder to reach. Let's control some of the issues with the age eligibility. You know, international players can also get designated as an Olympic potential Olympic athlete by countries, and then therefore, they don't have to practice the you know, the 20 hours a week, you know, it's a 20 hour rule to practice versus for Division 1 tennis.
- [64:57]
Megyn Kelly
Okay.
- [64:57]
Patrick McEnroe
And so if you get this, whatever they call it, marker that you are now able to, you come from, I'm making up the country Croatia. And Croatia says, you know, this person could potentially be an Olympic athlete for us one day, by the way. Not just tennis, swimming, gymnastics, water polo, you name it. They could practice as much as they want with their college teams. I'm like, wait a second, how does that make any sense?
- [65:23]
Megyn Kelly
So they don't have to practice with their team?
- [65:24]
Patrick McEnroe
Well, no, they can practice with their team, but the American kids can only practice 20 hours if they haven't been designated as a possible Olympic athlete, which of course, it's much more difficult to get that designation by their governing body for whatever sport that is. So there's all sorts of things that are happening. And you know, I'm getting ready to go to Washington with some people that I know because there's people behind the scenes trying to get, get some of these issues addressed. And I'm looking forward to get, you know, just be part of that conversation to how can we figure out. Let. There's got to be some guardrails here because again, I'm all for international play. I played tennis my whole life. I traveled the world. I've been very lucky to travel and continue to travel. Some of my great friends that are from all over the world, it's one of the great things about being in tennis. You know, you see them a couple times a year. You reminisce about when we were teenagers playing. So we, you know, very blessed to be able to do that. But at some point, like, what are American universities supposed to be about if they're only about winning? Which I think we've, we've taken that step in football and certainly basketball, that it's just about winning. So they do. The schools are going to pay whatever they have to pay to get these athletes. But. Okay, but is it the same for all the Olympic sports? Because if it is, then I believe in 10 years we're going to be looking at a much different outlook of what our sports look like.
- [66:47]
Megyn Kelly
We're not going to have any Americans on our Olympic teams who will be on them?
- [66:51]
Patrick McEnroe
Well, I remember Megan when I went to Stanford as a freshman and I was one of the top junior tennis players and I got a scholarship to go to Stanford. Our parents were very, you know, into us being educated well and went above and beyond to give us great opportunity. So we had the opportunity to, you know, play tennis, to use that as a way to get, get further educated. Now, of course, my brother ended up being number one. I ended up being a reasonably successful player. But for me, when I went to college, I didn't know I could be a professional. But I got to Stanford. I played number six on the team my first few months of the season because I had all these guys ahead of me that were, had also been, you know, number one recruit. But then I was walking around the campus and I'd go to the, I meet people in my dorm or I'd go to the swimming pool. There were Olympic athletes, Olympians, gold medalists, swimming on the Stanford swimming team, playing on the water polo team. So I got like, you know, that wake up call. I'm just a tennis player who's a decent, you know, national tennis player. My point is that you bring up a great point. Our university system has been the training ground for many of our Olympic athletes over the years. And I think we, we want that to continue. And you know, there's a competitive side of me that wants Americans to do well. I realize that some are saying, well, your American players are soft and they just got to get better. There's gotta be some guardrails about who can get these opportunities. And we have to take pride and continue to train our best kids and give the kids the opportunity that maybe that's still there. If people like the parent I spoke to at our tennis academy think that's not there anymore, then I'm worried about what the future of these other sports, other than the Big Two, looks like for the American youth.
- [68:34]
Megyn Kelly
Because if you think about it, these colleges make all their money off of football and basketball. When it comes to athletics and all the other sports are kind of an inconvenience to them, but are necessary by the. They have to have, I think, at least 16 under the law. But the other reason I think they have them still is it spurs alumni donations. If you get a team going, let's take Wake Forest, who won the championship last year.
- [68:57]
Patrick McEnroe
Last year, Right.
- [68:59]
Megyn Kelly
It feels good to go back to Wake Forest as an alum. If you played there on the tennis team and you helped win a national championship, you're going to give more money. And if you support that player or you know that player, you're going to get more money and so on. And it feels good for the people who are there to see their team win the championship. So it can be a money making opportunity with the donors like the alums.
- [69:17]
Patrick McEnroe
Correct.
- [69:18]
Megyn Kelly
But it's not a money making opportunity in the moment for the school.
- [69:21]
Patrick McEnroe
Right.
- [69:21]
Megyn Kelly
And we actually know somebody who was on that winning team and he was telling us that they were like, we made it into the finals, like, we're going to the national championship. This is so amazing. Right. And the school is kind of like, it's gonna cost us a lot of money to ship you guys all if you could wrap it up quickly.
- [69:37]
Patrick McEnroe
Right.
- [69:37]
Megyn Kelly
It's not like making the finals on the football team. So what does this just start at square one with like asking these colleges to answer that question? What is the purpose of college athletics? Sport to sport. What is the purpose? Right.
- [69:55]
Patrick McEnroe
I think that's part of the reason why I put this, trying to get the conversation out there that I think we need to have this conversation with people like you and people in the mainstream to start to understand because if we just want it to be like professionalized as it is in football and basketball and everybody loves to see their team win. You know, there's, there's the Illinois basketball team just by the way, that made the final Four. I believe half, about half of their team were international players. Okay. So now maybe they're not going to care in those. It'll never happen in football because we're the only country that plays football.
- [70:28]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. We've got no one else plays.
- [70:29]
Patrick McEnroe
We got that. Yeah. But in, in basketball, you know, the golf numbers are going up. Particularly women's got, collegiate golf, the numbers are going up because again, and not only are they getting, you know, there's great coaches in, in, in all these colleges, but I know tennis well, great coaches, great facilities, great competition for these players. So if you're an international player who's on the cusp of maybe becoming a pro or not, you're like, well, I could go and I can train for a few years and I can play professional tournaments in the off season of which they're allowing them to do that more and more. And now I can actually make a little money.
- [71:04]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [71:04]
Patrick McEnroe
Can you believe it? I mean there's college tennis players, some not, not, not liking football and basketball, you know, making six figures because of
- [71:11]
Megyn Kelly
the name, image and likeness.
- [71:12]
Carl Cannon
Yeah, exactly.
- [71:13]
Patrick McEnroe
And because what you mentioned, if the, the they have a good donor base at some of these schools and someone wants to donate, I'll make it up another million dollars to the tennis program. They can then use that money to recruit players.
- [71:25]
Megyn Kelly
They can steal a player from another competition.
- [71:29]
Patrick McEnroe
The portal is, is crazy what's going on in every sport. So that's to me Also something that, that needs to be reined in a little bit. You know, I mean, maybe you can transfer once throughout your career, but they
- [71:41]
Megyn Kelly
keep moving from the highest bidder to the highest bidder because these schools can now say, oh, I'm going to give you $500,000 under the name, image and likeness, permission policy. And they say, great. But really it's nine times out of ten just a slush fund that donors put together. It really doesn't have anything to do with it. Nil.
- [71:59]
Patrick McEnroe
It's like, and I covered the NCAA basketball tournament quite a bit on my radio, radio show and I called it, you know, the disappearance of the mid major, you know, the Cinderella. There's no more Cinderellas in basketball.
- [72:09]
Megyn Kelly
Because I heard you say this, I thought this was very interesting during the NCAA tournament because it was like, whatever happened to the Cinderella story? And why isn't it there? It's because of the name, image and likeness thing.
- [72:18]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah. So if you're, let's say a mid major team and you've got a couple of players that are really good, guess what's going to happen to them once everybody sees them on the national stage? You know, your team does well, what do you think's going to happen to them after their freshman year of college?
- [72:31]
Megyn Kelly
Get poached.
- [72:31]
Patrick McEnroe
Going to get poached by one of the biggest big name universities with a big slush fund.
- [72:35]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [72:35]
Patrick McEnroe
And those teams are just going to continue to get better and then it's going to push out, you know, the little guy who had that chance as part of what made the NCAA tournament. Amazing that you could see someone, you know, St. Mary's or St. Joe's you know, upset a number one or two seed that un, you know, that's the business side of it. And I don't think that's going to change just because there's so much money involved in those sports. But that's having a trickle down effect into sports like tennis and Olympic sport. You know, maybe people say, who cares? We don't care about tennis. Tennis isn't popular. Well, I care about it. Yeah. And I know people care about their, like you said, their sports, whether it's swimming, whether it's gymnastics, whether it's golf. And I think this is an issue that we, we need to keep talking about and say, okay, if, if we can't come up with some, I've given you some idea of what some of the solutions could be. If you're, if you're, pick a number 23 or 24, I would say you're done playing college tennis. I don't care if you were injured for two years. I don't care if you served like a lot of these inertia boys in the military, their military service. You get to a certain age, you're done.
- [73:37]
Megyn Kelly
I think it's reasonable because truly, if you take a 25 year old, you know, student from abroad who's been playing professional tennis for a couple of years and now wants to come to Stanford and play against your kid who's 17 or 18, 18, and he and his parents, or she and her parents are thinking that they'll further develop over those four years, like they're going to get crushed. There's no competition between somebody who's that physically developed and been on the pro circuit and a high school junior or senior.
- [74:04]
Patrick McEnroe
Someone sent me a great message about this particular topic when they said, imagine yourself as a incoming freshman, Patrick McEnroe, as a, you know, young, hot recruit, but I'm Gonna play number six on the team. Playing against yourself at 24, when I made the semifinals of the Australian Open and, you know, beat Boris Becker in Australia, you know what I'm saying? Like that version of myself against the 18, you know, I'd win 6 1. 6 1.
- [74:30]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [74:30]
Patrick McEnroe
The old. And so to me, that's happening far too often in the collegiate game. And again, it's not. It's not. It can't be to me about just winning.
- [74:43]
Megyn Kelly
Well, because I also look at, like, the number of donations that they may be getting off of having a winning tennis team. Like what? I'm not picking on Wake Forest. I have no idea whether they got donations or didn't or. Let's, let's do uva because they want it this year. Let's say they got some amount of donations coming in from alumni who feel great about uva tennis because they won the national championships. Is that. It can't be that big.
- [75:03]
Patrick McEnroe
It's not gonna be that much.
- [75:04]
Megyn Kelly
It can't be that big. Is that worth, like, the sacrifice of our American boys and girls?
- [75:09]
Patrick McEnroe
Like, I don't think so.
- [75:10]
Megyn Kelly
Why wouldn't we say. Because you point out in your op ed and this. I didn't mention the op ed, but it's. You wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal called Where are all the Americans in American College Tennis? And you guys should Google it. It hit on me first. But one of the points you were making is, no, it cannot be all about winning. Especially because we're in tennis, we're not in basketball, we're not in football. So what is it about? Okay, maybe alumni donations. That doesn't seem like a big enough number to justify the sacrifice of all of our boys, boys and girls development. So what about that? Like there used to be, you posit a commitment to the development of American kids in tennis and other, you know, sort of less than top tier sports in terms of money making and, and like the nurturing and just the, like the joy that that brings to American kids who want to play tennis at the college level and like you maybe want to use it to get into an institution that they otherwise could not. Right. But instead we're giving all those spots at Stanford now, the one that you had at Harvard, wherever, to kids from other countries who probably aren't even gonna stay here. And they're definitely not gonna be donating a bunch of money back to that school. They're gonna go home and bring all that to their home country.
- [76:17]
Patrick McEnroe
I think a lot of them can't even get a visa to work here. So I think they have to leave when they're done. So no, you don't get that same commitment. I mean, I loved my years at Stanford. You know, some of my best friends are still my buddies I met. They're not on the tennis team. You know, guys have played football, other sports and we, we have a text chain. We, we communicate all the time and that's going around the happening all over the country with people and that's the, that's a connection that we all have with our universities. It's, and it's unique, you know, in other countries. There's no sporting programs in Europe and France and Italy and Germany where, you know, you, they go to university there and they go to university to learn a trade. They don't go to play tennis or play soccer.
- [76:56]
Megyn Kelly
Soccer.
- [76:56]
Patrick McEnroe
And there's these sort of semi professional leagues that have been ongoing in other sports in Europe, whether it's in soccer, where they basically get brought along as professionals. And by the way, there's professional leagues in Europe.
- [77:12]
Megyn Kelly
They have no Americans.
- [77:14]
Patrick McEnroe
Well, they have caps on how many international players they can have. Even in the La Liga, which is like the biggest league in Spain, you know, there are caps on how many non Spanish players.
- [77:25]
Megyn Kelly
They take care of their own.
- [77:26]
Patrick McEnroe
This is professional sports.
- [77:27]
Megyn Kelly
Yes, they're taking care of their own. This is exactly like the Chinese thing that Trump just announced where we're gonna now first he said we're gonna let 300,000 people, students come over to our universities and people on the right freaked out about it. And then he upped it to 500,000. Okay, so now it's 500,000 Chinese students who are gonna come into our American universities and take a spot that otherwise would have gone to an American. And they're. They're probably going to go back home with those educations. Guess how many students we have that are American at a Chinese university. Zero.
- [77:56]
Patrick McEnroe
Right.
- [77:56]
Megyn Kelly
Guess how much Chinese farmland Americans own. Zero. It only goes one way. And there's no protectionism like even the Europeans have figured out to protect their professional sports league.
- [78:08]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah, I mean, I think. I think we, you know, as Americans, like the fact that we can be a little more welcoming than some of the countries you just mentioned. To me, that's. That's important to us.
- [78:18]
Megyn Kelly
Nor do our people really want to go to China.
- [78:20]
Patrick McEnroe
Well, that's another issue. But as, again, I've said this before, and I'm going to say it again because I believe it. I like having international players. I like having international students at campuses. Yeah, but there's got to be some limits. That's all I'm saying. There's got to be some limits. And. And if we can't figure out a way, at least in the athletic side of the equation to limit or I should say increase the opportunities for our kids, then I think we have to at least start talking about, is it 20%, is it 30% of the roster for. I'm making it up. University of Virginia, Stanford. By the way, Stanford actually has a lot of Americans on their team, which is unusual. The two teams that made it to the Sweet 16 in Men's Center, Stanford and Ohio State, all of their players were American.
- [79:07]
Megyn Kelly
Wow.
- [79:08]
Patrick McEnroe
Okay. Because they. The coaches there decide they want. But. And again, I'm not. In no way am I blaming the coaches of the other universities. They're just trying to get the best players to win. Of all the other ones in the sweet 16. I gave you the numbers earlier. It's like three or four Americans.
- [79:21]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, we talked to. One of my producers is married to a former D1 player at USC and who won all sorts of awards, all American. And his dad was the coach for years at USC. 10. Tennis.
- [79:32]
Patrick McEnroe
Dick Leach.
- [79:33]
Megyn Kelly
My. I don't know if his. Okay, what's his name? Lauren, what is it? Peter Smith.
- [79:38]
Patrick McEnroe
Oh, Peter Smith. He came after Dick Leach.
- [79:39]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, yeah. He played you and he lost to you.
- [79:41]
Patrick McEnroe
Peter Smith. I think he played a cat. Was it Cal or. He might have played a Cal when he was at US Long Beach State.
- [79:48]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [79:48]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah.
- [79:49]
Megyn Kelly
So he. She gave me some of the notes from her husband and from his dad in preparation for this. And he said that there one year when he was coach of USC and they won the national championship. Yeah. Like four or five times under his leadership. But one year he went all American, and he said it was the worst year they ever had.
- [80:06]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah.
- [80:06]
Megyn Kelly
You know, it's a reality. Yeah. Because these other guys are like these stallions.
- [80:11]
Patrick McEnroe
Exactly. And also, you know, I'll be honest, tennis is more popular in Europe. So there's more because that's all they have.
- [80:17]
Megyn Kelly
That's all they play. Soccer, tennis.
- [80:19]
Patrick McEnroe
Well, soccer. 10. I mean, there's, you know, basketball is getting bigger in, In Spain and in France and certain. We see the missed guy for the San Antonio spurs. Not bad. 7, 6, 1 by Amma from the Spurs. Yeah, he's pretty darn good. But there's. So there's more better players in Europe just because there's, there's, there's. There's more numbers. But that being said, the way they're sort of skirting around these eligibility issues, to me, is a. Is a major problem with the age, which. The age with coming in after, like you've said, they've played professionally, semi professionally for a couple of years. You know, from the time they're 16, they start playing on the tour. And then what. What it used to happen to a lot of these European players when I was a kid and when I was playing in Europe in the Junior French Open and all that, they would either they would go onto the pro tour, and if they didn't make it, they'd quit, you know, 20, 21. They'd be like, I can't make it. I'm good, but I'm not good enough. And it's hard to make money as a professional tennis player. It's not like the other sports. It's not as many numbers.
- [81:13]
Megyn Kelly
You have to be in the.
- [81:14]
Patrick McEnroe
You have to be in the top hundred, top, top tier. So now they're saying, well, I'll just go to college.
- [81:19]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, and I can make money.
- [81:20]
Patrick McEnroe
I can make some money, get a degree. And you're seeing some European players now that are very successful on the pro tour that spent four or five years in college, and now in their mid to late 20s, they're kind of breaking into the top of professional tennis. And I'm all for. The story is great. I mean, a great story is I don't care where you come from, but I do care that it's limiting opportunities for our kids and for the parents that are dedicated to it.
- [81:47]
Megyn Kelly
With all due respect to DJOKOVIC and Sinner Alcaraz. We do, we do want to see Americans dominate these tournaments. And like, my husband knows James Blake a bit.
- [82:00]
Patrick McEnroe
Yep.
- [82:01]
Megyn Kelly
And he went to Harvard and really apparently, like, blew up at Harvard. Like, he was amazing. Way better than they thought he was going to be. And I think after.
- [82:10]
Patrick McEnroe
Then he went, I think two years.
- [82:11]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. He left and went pro and had a. Very successful.
- [82:15]
Patrick McEnroe
Very successful.
- [82:16]
Megyn Kelly
Like, he was number five in the world at one point. So, like, like, these American universities can actually help our boys definitely go girls.
- [82:23]
Patrick McEnroe
And girls.
- [82:23]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, and girls. But, like, go from great to.
- [82:25]
Patrick McEnroe
Yep.
- [82:26]
Megyn Kelly
Next level.
- [82:27]
Patrick McEnroe
Totally.
- [82:27]
Megyn Kelly
And set them up for success on the pro tour, which Americans do want to see. I think most Americans would prefer to see our. Our boys and girls crushing it on the pro circuit.
- [82:35]
Patrick McEnroe
Yes.
- [82:35]
Megyn Kelly
Having gone through an American university then, you know, they had a great high school career that petered into nothing, and now we have all foreigners dominating the Grand Slam tournament.
- [82:45]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah. I mean, there is a. There is a little difference in that. Pro tennis is different, in my view, than collegiate tennis. But I get your point, which is that, of course, I was just on a zoom call with the press, with my brother about our Mac Zone show at. At the French Open next week. And one of the questions that we. We often get asked and we got asked again was which American male can win a major? Because, you know, you have a center now. Alcres is injured, unfortunately, but those two have won the last nine in a row.
- [83:10]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [83:11]
Patrick McEnroe
And we both said the same name. Ben Shelton, who played two years at University of Florida. His dad played on the tour when. When I was on the tour. Brian Shelton, great kid, great charisma. Does he have a chance to win a major? Yes, of course. We as American fans would love to see that happen. But here's a kid that played football as a youth, as a young kid, didn't go to tennis, you know, completely until he was 13 or 14. His dad, he said it was funny. He said to his dad once, hey, Dad, I want to go play, you know, international tournaments. And his dad looks and says, why? He says, did you. Have you won all the tournaments in Florida? Have you won all the tournaments in the US when you do that, then when there's no one else for you to play, but, you know, so far you're not doing that. So he's a great story.
- [83:52]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [83:53]
Patrick McEnroe
Because it's like all the things that we would love to see, you know, well, rounded youth doing different sports, then concentrating on tennis, going to play at the university. His dad was a Coach at Florida when he won it. Great story. So we, we want to see that and we want to have that be the opportunity for more of our kids.
- [84:10]
Megyn Kelly
Is it true that Jannik Sinner didn't really get serious about tennis until he was 14? Do you know that I heard that about his backstory, I would say that
- [84:18]
Patrick McEnroe
that's not entirely true because he was a world class skier until the time he was 12.
- [84:25]
Megyn Kelly
Right.
- [84:25]
Patrick McEnroe
So he skied and he played tennis and he was also quite good at tennis. I believe it was around the age of 12 that he made the decision. He tells a very good, funny story about it. He said, you know, he was a downhill racer. And he said, you know, you make one mistake in the downhill and you're done.
- [84:41]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [84:41]
Patrick McEnroe
Race, it's over. You know, in tennis, you know, you can make some mistakes. You're still okay. You just lose a point. So he decided to stick with tennis and. But you can see when he plays, you watch him play, he's very, you know, long and gangly.
- [84:53]
Megyn Kelly
Doug says he's like a praying mantis.
- [84:55]
Patrick McEnroe
A praying mantis, he says. That's good. Get him on TV with me.
- [84:57]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah, he's. I know, I do, actually. Doug would love that.
- [85:00]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah. But he slides around that scene here yesterday. Yeah, I heard that was a big show. Yeah. Yeah. So, yes, you, you hear those stories. Roger Federer was a great soccer player. Yeah. And played a lot of soccer until usually for someone that becomes an all time or even just a pro player, usually around 12, 13, you then kind of have to make the decision. Okay. I'm going to go, you know, strictly with tennis. And that's what, that's what Sinner did. So it was, I think it was around 12.
- [85:26]
Megyn Kelly
Okay.
- [85:27]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah.
- [85:27]
Megyn Kelly
I mean, he's incredible to watch.
- [85:28]
Patrick McEnroe
Yes.
- [85:29]
Megyn Kelly
We're going to take a break. We're going to come back. But when we come back, I want to ask you a couple of other question questions and we'll continue this discussion. I want to talk to you about steroids in sports because that is another thing I hear from a lot of moms. I know about why they don't want their kids to push into college level athletics. Never mind beyond. Right. Because it requires, it may require a sacrifice like that. All right, stand by. We're back in a second with Patrick McEnroe. If your dog is scratching more than usual, licking their paws or shaking their head, it might seem like normal dog behavior, but it turns out those can actually be signs that your dog has allergies. And a lot of those issues Start in the gut When a dog's gut health is off, it shows up in their skin digestion, even their energy levels. But here is an option for you. Better Wild Allergy Relief Soft Chews. They are designed to help balance your dog's gut health to support the dog's immune system. They are the first and only chews with ancestral Advantage Wolf probiotics with natural ingredients. Better Wild says it's proven to help reduce itching and support gut, immune and skin health. Plus, Better Wild uses clinically studied veterinarian approved ingredients. Consider giving it a try. Right now, Better Wild is offering you up to 40% off your order at betterwild.com MK that's betterwild.com MK for up to to 40% off your order, go to betterwild.com MK today, let's talk about an uncomfortable reality. What happens financially to our loved ones once we are no longer here? We put off thinking about it for obvious reasons, but the best thing we can do for our family is to ensure that they are not left with a financial burden of mortgage, tuition, medical bills, all of it. Fortunately, taking steps to financially protect your family is easier nowadays than it used to be. And that's where Ethos comes in. Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy and 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, and even get same day coverage. There's no medical exam and all you need to do is just answer a few simple health questions and boom, Bob's your uncle. You can get up to 3 million bucks in coverage. You get the lowest rate from their network of trusted carriers with some policies as low as $30 a month.
- [87:48]
Patrick McEnroe
Month.
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Megyn Kelly
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Patrick McEnroe
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- [89:11]
Megyn Kelly
Hey, everyone, it's me, Megyn Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel on SiriusX. It's called the Megyn Kelly Channel, and it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered, with no agenda and no apologies. Along with the Megyn Kelly show, you're gonna hear from people like Mark Halperin, link Lauren Maureen Callahan, Emily jasinsky, Jesse Kelly, RealClear Politics, and many more. It's bold. No BS news only on the Megyn Kelly Channel, SiriusXM 111 and on the Sirius XM app. Back with me now, Patrick McEnroe, ESPN analyst and host of Holding Court with Patrick McEnroe on SiriusXM Mad Dog Sports Radio. I would be remiss if I didn't play this sound bite that my team has cut of your brother because we love this piece of him like all Americans do. He's got a temper.
- [90:04]
Patrick McEnroe
Yes, he does.
- [90:04]
Megyn Kelly
And we are here for it. SOT20.
- [90:07]
Patrick McEnroe
You can't be serious, man. You cannot be serious. Answer my question. Question the question. Jerk. Dave was saying, waiting for him to play. I've been complaining that he's taking too long. Now all of a sudden, I'm the guy that gets a penalty. I wonder how that works. Is that your judgment on that? Hey, that's a brilliant judgment. How did you come up with that? How did you come out with such a brilliant. That's right.
- [90:47]
Carl Cannon
Yeah.
- [90:48]
Patrick McEnroe
Don't be doing that.
- [90:49]
Megyn Kelly
And he shoves it out of his face.
- [90:51]
Patrick McEnroe
Gotta love it.
- [90:51]
Megyn Kelly
So you share in his tennis abilities. Do you share the temper?
- [90:56]
Patrick McEnroe
No, I don't share it either. Megan. For better. For better or worse. You know, it's funny because he's still saying those phrases. You know, my dad tried to trademark you. Cannot be. My dad was an attorney, so he tried to trademark you. Cannot be serious. Turned out, no, but not legal. But too bad. But he's, you know, he's. He's milked it for all it's worth.
- [91:14]
Megyn Kelly
Our guests in the first hour, the Real Clear Politics guys. They actually added a segment to their show because of that called, you cannot be serious. You can be serious.
- [91:23]
Patrick McEnroe
They need to be paying John for that. But my dad used to always say to him, first of all, he'd say, john, why do you get so upset? You know? And my dad would start screaming. It was, you know, Irish. His family came from Ireland. And then he was only child, grew up in Manhattan with nothing. And he said. And he started yelling at John like we'd be out at dinner or something. You know, John says, hmm, I wonder where I got it. But he used to take. But he. In all seriousness, he used to tell John, whatever you do, don't use bad language. So you'll notice in all those clips, John never, you know, Connors used to say the raunchy things.
- [91:56]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, did he?
- [91:57]
Patrick McEnroe
Big time. Yeah. And if you say, you know, the F word, what do you get? An automatic fine. Oh, so. So my dad was. I said, never say a bad word because that's how you get fined. That's. You could get suspended. And so that's where he came up with, you know, you're the pits of the world. You cannot be serious.
- [92:11]
Megyn Kelly
Those are euphemisms.
- [92:12]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah. It's like he's thinking of something else. He says, you cannot be right.
- [92:15]
Megyn Kelly
So off camera, he's saltier.
- [92:18]
Patrick McEnroe
No, he's mellowed a little bit now. He's mellowing. But he's, He's. He's definitely got a little. That rocker edge. You know, he loves to play guitar. He loves art. He's always been into art.
- [92:27]
Megyn Kelly
I love that he shoved Jimmy Connors face.
- [92:29]
Patrick McEnroe
Wasn't.
- [92:29]
Megyn Kelly
He wasn't finger at his.
- [92:31]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah, they probably still do that today, the two of them. You know, they've been through a lot together.
- [92:34]
Megyn Kelly
How do you think tennis has changed? I mean, as. As. I only got into tennis as a spectator when I met Doug 20 years ago. But I mean, the obvious thing is the outfits. That's one thing. The shorts are longer today, but the rackets are so different and so much more capable of power, I guess. And Doug was telling me that there. There's been a debate about whether they should change the rackets because the serves have gotten so dominant. Yeah. Like, you can almost not hit them, like.
- [93:02]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah.
- [93:03]
Megyn Kelly
Is that a bad change?
- [93:04]
Patrick McEnroe
The good thing is, is that the rackets have also helped on the return of serve.
- [93:08]
Megyn Kelly
Okay.
- [93:09]
Patrick McEnroe
So there was actually a time, especially at Wimbledon in the. About around 2000, when Pete Sampras was dominating with his serve and they actually changed the complexion of the grass on the courts at Wimbledon so that it Made it a better bounce. It would bounce up a little more because they were worried about exactly that. The game becoming too fast, just becoming about the big server that's actually gone back to where now, you know, the best players in tennis now are the ones that are the best athletes that can move, the best that can retrieve balls, that can obviously play offense. So the game is. Is essentially the same, but it's sped up exponentially. Like, if you watch, you know, my brother playing Borg from the US Open, it, you know, no offense, it looks like it's in slow motion compared to the speed. And they were using wood rackets. Right now, they were both the best athletes, the best players of their day. And by the way, I believe they would still be the best athletes if they grew up today because they just have the skill and then you learn to, you know, use the equipment that you're given. But definitely the rackets and the string. Technology has really changed the nature of the game in the last 15 years. You have the ball, you. It almost grabs the ball. You could control it.
- [94:18]
Megyn Kelly
It.
- [94:18]
Patrick McEnroe
The harder you swing, the more control you have. You get the ball to jump, to have a lot of spin on it. So that's really the biggest difference now. So. But what does that mean? That means that the players have to be able to move quicker to get to the ball, every point consistently. So you're seeing better and better athletes play the game.
- [94:34]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [94:34]
Patrick McEnroe
Use the technology that's available to them. So to me, it's much more exciting to watch. I mean, I love to watch these. I mean, Carlos Alcaraz, what he's doing on a tennis court, he's coming up with shots that we used to think weren't even possible.
- [94:47]
Megyn Kelly
It's superhuman. That's how it works.
- [94:48]
Patrick McEnroe
It's superhuman. And. But now what's. What's happening, Megan? Like, even at our, you know, tennis academy in New York City, the kids are watching it. And then they're trying to emulate those shots. Now, most of them can, but over time, you know, that's how the game continues to evolve, where Alcaraz is on the dead run, and, you know, even great Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, they would get there, but they would just kind of get it back. Now they get there and, like, I'm going to hit a winner from that position from center alcohol, and they can do it.
- [95:13]
Megyn Kelly
Or you get. Who's the guy with the. Between the legs that all the kids.
- [95:16]
Patrick McEnroe
Nick Curios.
- [95:17]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [95:18]
Patrick McEnroe
All the trick shots.
- [95:19]
Megyn Kelly
I'm gonna get there. I'm gonna Hit through my legs.
- [95:20]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah, he did a lot. We. We actually practice those now at our academy.
- [95:24]
Megyn Kelly
Of course, the kids love it.
- [95:25]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah, you got. They gotta have some fun.
- [95:26]
Megyn Kelly
That's why Kyrgios was good for the game in my. I know he's controversial, but he was. I think he was good for the game.
- [95:31]
Patrick McEnroe
It's a shame that he didn't get it together from the standpoint of being able to be that showman, but also, like, be more competitive, win and be, like, dedicated.
- [95:40]
Megyn Kelly
So what's going to happen next? Because right now, Sinner is. He seems to be the tops. Alcaraz is out. He's out of the. He's injured.
- [95:47]
Patrick McEnroe
And he just announced yesterday he's out of Wimbledon, which is a huge bummer for the tournament.
- [95:51]
Megyn Kelly
Such a bummer.
- [95:51]
Patrick McEnroe
He's got a wrist problem, and nobody really knows exactly what the problem is, but it's obviously serious because for him to take this much time off and announce this far in advance that he's
- [96:01]
Megyn Kelly
not going to play.
- [96:01]
Patrick McEnroe
He's not playing is not good. So these two guys have completely distanced themselves, is from the pack in men's tennis. So now you've got Sinner going into Roland Garros, that's a huge favorite to try to win it. He almost won it last year in the epic match that Alcaraz came back from match points down, which is one of the greatest matches I've ever seen. And I was lucky enough to be there live. So it's about him and it's about
- [96:23]
Megyn Kelly
everyone else because, you know, the past 10 years, we've had Federer and Djokovic and Nadal. Right. Those three down there.
- [96:29]
Patrick McEnroe
And we had a couple other guys that, you know. Andy Murray won three majors. Stan Lanka. Yeah. Who?
- [96:36]
Megyn Kelly
He was a Brit.
- [96:37]
Patrick McEnroe
Well, he's Scottish.
- [96:38]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, okay.
- [96:38]
Patrick McEnroe
Well, he's a Brit, but he was important.
- [96:40]
Megyn Kelly
Since you're from Ireland. Yeah, we have to be careful.
- [96:42]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah, well, he's very particular about that. He's Scottish, but the Brits love him. And, you know, he was a great player. And so you had not only the Big Three, but you had a couple other guys that could also, you know, get in the mix and win a major. And at the moment, there's nobody. I mean, Djokovic is 38, 39.
- [97:00]
Megyn Kelly
It's crazy where he's, like, talking about.
- [97:01]
Patrick McEnroe
And then he's. He got to the finals and beat center in Australia this year, which to me was one of the greatest performances of his career. And this is a guy who's won 24 majors he's won the most of anyone.
- [97:11]
Megyn Kelly
Stone cold, all time.
- [97:12]
Patrick McEnroe
Oh, he is.
- [97:13]
Megyn Kelly
He's, like, unflappable, that guy.
- [97:14]
Patrick McEnroe
Ruthless.
- [97:15]
Megyn Kelly
He's just like, the ball goes where he wants it to go.
- [97:18]
Patrick McEnroe
So now everybody in the tennis world is like, okay, maybe this is Djokovic's shot. Because most of us think probably can't beat Sinner and Alcaraz back to back. He beat Sinner in Australia. Alcaraz beat him in the final. You know, kind of ran out of steam. Alcaraz is, you know, 20, almost 20 years younger. But now if he's going in there thinking, hmm, I just gotta beat one of them, you know, because that's. That's why he's still playing.
- [97:42]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. He's like, I'm sorry.
- [97:44]
Patrick McEnroe
He doesn't need the money.
- [97:45]
Tom Bevin
I can.
- [97:45]
Patrick McEnroe
I can show the world that I can win one more.
- [97:47]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [97:48]
Patrick McEnroe
And maybe. I don't think he. I don't think he can do it in Paris because the clay is. Is, you know, still his most challenging service, despite the fact that he's won it three times. This is why I call him the greatest ever, because his worst major is Paris, the French Open. He's won it three times. Nadal won Wimbledon twice. Yeah. And Federer only won the French once in his career. But Djokovic has won everything, you know, a million times.
- [98:11]
Megyn Kelly
Don't you think the opinion on him has changed? He used to be sort of like the bad guy. Yeah, the bad guy. Like, not that beloved. And he really made. Made people love him just by his tenacity, his strength, his skill.
- [98:22]
Patrick McEnroe
I mean, his ability to. To. To. To see him when he's not the favorite now, as we've seen in the last couple years. And I think that's what's drawn more of the casual fan to him, because it was always like, you know, the Federer fans and the Nadal fans, I mean, they're. They're insane. Like, that's. That's like the Yankees or the Dodgers. You know what I'm saying? And so this guy Djokovic comes along, you know, with the edge, and he's Serbian, and he's got the background, and. And he's just like, in your face. And so he never had the popularity that those two have had, but now people respect him so much more, and they also see that he knows, and he said it publicly, I'm not as good as Sinner. And Alcaraz right now. They're just better. They're faster, they're stronger. It's the modern version of the game. But he's still out there killing himself just to try to play with him.
- [99:10]
Megyn Kelly
He's like, I got a few tricks still up my sleeve.
- [99:12]
Patrick McEnroe
Yes, he does.
- [99:12]
Megyn Kelly
Also, we forgot to mention medvedev. He's been fun to watch. He is a little bit more colorful with the language.
- [99:17]
Patrick McEnroe
He's a little more. Yes, he is.
- [99:18]
Megyn Kelly
He's got a little Johnny Mac.
- [99:19]
Patrick McEnroe
Johnny Mac, Yep. And don't you think we'll see what he's got to offer. Usually doesn't do too well in Paris, but at Wimbledon, he'd be a factor. And he's one of the few guys that has won a major in the last, you know, few years and won the u. S. Open.
- [99:33]
Megyn Kelly
We were there for that. That was exciting. So speaking of that level of play, steroids for. For parents who are out there wondering what percentage. And we're not going to name anybody, of course, but, like, what percentage of the players are likely using them? What would you guess?
- [99:49]
Patrick McEnroe
I would say it's pretty minimal. I mean, yeah, I. You know, they're. Tennis players get tested all the time. You know, that's.
- [99:54]
Megyn Kelly
But aren't there ways around the test?
- [99:56]
Patrick McEnroe
There probably are, but at the same time, it's pretty stringent, the testing protocol. So I'm not a pharmaceutical expert, so I can only surmise that they're doing as much as they can to keep it clean. There's no way for me to know if someone's using or not and they're not getting caught. If they're not getting caught, then to me, they're not using. That's how I look at it. Maybe I'm naive. I can tell you this, Omega, that tennis players have to let them know their whereabouts every single day of the year.
- [100:33]
Megyn Kelly
Oh, really?
- [100:33]
Patrick McEnroe
If you're on vacation and in December with your family, you know, in Hawaii, they can come and show up at your hotel room at 6 in the morning.
- [100:43]
Megyn Kelly
Is that right?
- [100:43]
Patrick McEnroe
And not only get a urine test, but get a blood test.
- [100:46]
Megyn Kelly
So where they watch you, right? Yeah. They watch you urinate, like they do, like.
- [100:50]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah. Sneak in and, you know, grab someone else's.
- [100:53]
Megyn Kelly
Which is a thing.
- [100:53]
Patrick McEnroe
Which is a thing. Which has been. Some people have been caught doing that. So that's why I say, you know, people are always going to look to get an edge. Right. Whether it's, you know, hopefully it's legal. You know, there's all systems, you know, whether taking vitamins and all these supplements and recovery. And to me, that's the biggest thing that's changed about at least professional tennis. That I can see is that the attention to detail for the recovery for the reason Djokovic has been able to play this long at this level. Of course, it's because of his skill and his ability in his heart and his guts. But it's also because you've learned how to take care of the body better than anyone. Everything he eats, what he puts in his system, that doesn't strike me as, you know. And so the bar has been raised. So I think all these players are trying to figure out, okay, what can I do that's legal that will give me the best edge? Now, there's players that have been caught doing illegal stuff. Usually in tennis, they take a steroid that would be something that would help you in recovery. So it tends to be someone that's coming back from an injury where they would take something that would help their recovery process. But it's not like a steroid is going to help you with probably endurance or thing. It might. Maybe it just helps you train harder. So I don't. I honestly don't think there's a huge problem in tennis. Again, maybe I'm naive.
- [102:08]
Megyn Kelly
You're right.
- [102:08]
Patrick McEnroe
Yeah, I think I'm right.
- [102:09]
Megyn Kelly
What percentage of the game would you say is mental versus physical?
- [102:14]
Patrick McEnroe
Well, at the highest. So to differentiate you from someone who's of an equal ability, the mental part is huge. But I, you know, I tell this story to people. Like, when I played in. In my day, you know, I was like a journeyman player between. Ranked between, you know, 25 and 30 and 50 or 70. If I played Andre Agassi, and he was, you know, playing, I had no chance, right. I had no chance to beat him.
- [102:36]
Megyn Kelly
He was that much better.
- [102:36]
Patrick McEnroe
He was just that much better than me. I didn't meet him mentally. Now, if I played someone, you know, Boris Becker, I had matched up a little better with him.
- [102:42]
Megyn Kelly
He had some issues.
- [102:43]
Patrick McEnroe
He had some. Some issues. But the. For Sinner and Alcaraz, against 98% of the people they play against, they're better. So they're not going to lose unless something very strange happens. But when they play each other, someone of an equal ability, then the mental side becomes a much bigger part of it. So there's certain genetic differences between players that differentiate the top couple from the rest. But I'll tell you what I've seen, and this is part of our earlier collegiate tennis discussion, there's a lot more really good players, say from 50 to 350, 400. Whereas in my day, you know, if you're outside the top 120, 150, you know, the level went way down. Now there's just a lot more really good players. But the, but the difference at the top is still, to me mostly physical. And then what differentiates, you know, the, the greats from the all time greats? When you look at Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, yeah, they were better players, but they were also just, they learned how to recover, I think from losses better than it. Because tennis is a brutal sport. You know, you're on your own brutal. And when you lose some of these epic, you know, matches that I've seen between these players and they, they have the ability to just kind of brush it off and say, okay, what, what can I do to like, in other words, not let it simmer. That loss, but kind of go even
- [104:06]
Megyn Kelly
in the moment, even lost is a disappointment. Every tiebreaker lost.
- [104:10]
Patrick McEnroe
That's what Federer talked about in his famous speech.
- [104:12]
Carl Cannon
It was a great one speech.
- [104:13]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah. Every set lost. But I will say, watching our kids play and watching their classmates play their respective sports really does give me such a newfound respect for the kids who devote themselves to athletics because it is, you put it all on the line. And even on a team sport, like we watch our lacrosse team, there are huge individual moments. So you have both the team aspect and you have the time when it's you, you've got the ball, you're approaching the net, you're, you know, approaching the crease, you're going to throw it or you're not, you're going to have the glory or you're not. And it just, it can make or break a person. Like it's a real opportunity to grow your spirit.
- [104:49]
Patrick McEnroe
Well, this is why I'm very committed to trying to help college athletics, because you are 100% right. And I, we were lucky enough to play team sports. You know, we played on our soccer team at school all the way through high school, my brother and I. Wow. And we love, obviously love tennis because the, we like the individual part, but the team, the, the camaraderie and being part of a team and learning resilience, that's it. You know, I think that's the biggest thing, the disappointment, as you said in tennis, you get it all the time and you get it in the team sports. You know, when you're a team and like, just think about it, you missed a shot at the buzzer, you know, to win the game or, or to have your team lose the game, I mean, that hurts.
- [105:28]
Megyn Kelly
Yeah.
- [105:29]
Patrick McEnroe
You got to go home and deal with that and deal with your teammates,
- [105:32]
Megyn Kelly
but it will develop a mental tenacity that will help you in all aspects of your life. One of the many reasons that we need some reform, USTA. We need some reform at the NCAA level. Patrick McEnroe. Thank you.
- [105:44]
Patrick McEnroe
Thank you for having me. Pleasure.
- [105:45]
Megyn Kelly
All the best. We'll see you guys tomorrow. Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly Show. No bs, no agenda and no fear. When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want. Like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot. And turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.
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